And Now a Word From Our Zombies

I haven't blogged for awhile. Why? Because it's the end of the semester. No, you didn't hear me right. The end of the semester.

Candy and all her colleagues have lost the will to live.

We had 10 days off for Thanksgiving Break. I graded papers every friggin' day, trying to become master over the merciless pile of student writing. It didn't happen. But at least I got to avoid putting actual classroom-appropriate clothes on for a good long time. I could be a total slob, cozying up in my raggedy sweats and angry T-shirts.

Upon returning to work this past Monday, I entered the bleak hallways of the English Department to see even bleaker faces. It's hard to describe that look, but every faculty member had it. Like there's extra gravity on each face, forming a melting, somebody-put-me-outta-my-misery old coon dog who can't get out from under the porch look. We barely greeted one another. It took too much effort. We just exchanged our desperate looks and went on slouching down the hallway.

Soon, the final blow from our students: they'll hand in their final papers. Many many pages of inane writing that we will gather into bulky piles and carry out of the classrooms as though we intend to read them.

Me? I skim. I flip through and give them a quick glance just to make sure nobody wrote "I know you're not reading these, bitch." And also to make sure nobody was moronic enough to attach cash to their masterpiece. One girl did, last year. She stapled a 20 dollar bill to her final essay. This muttering, ineffective, waste-of-a-desk girl could not rise to the occasion of any of the really rough parts of class, like, say, getting there on time, ever, or stringing 4 coherent words together. But she coughed up a twenty. I tore her a new rectum, which I'm sure could write better than she did, and told her not only could she be booted from the university for doing that, but what the hell did she think 20 bucks could buy her anyway. What an insult.